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SARS virus proves dangerously durable
CanWest News Service - The Edmonton Journal - canada.com ^ | , April 20, 2003 | David Rider, With files from Rick Pedersen

Posted on 04/20/2003 9:05:28 AM PDT by CathyRyan

TORONTO - In a frightening new twist, health officials say the SARS virus is able to survive outside the human body -- and pose a danger -- for at least 24 hours, in addition to being spread by face-to-face contact.

The tenacity of the mysterious severe acute respiratory syndrome virus may explain a new cluster of infections in Toronto.

Hospital workers there have caught the disease despite being protected from head to toe by gowns, gloves, masks and eye shields.

"We know that the (precautionary) measures that have been recommended should be adequate to deal with those (patients)," said Dr. Andrew Simor, head of microbiology at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital.

"But we're also impressed with just how easily the virus is spread, how it might contaminate the environment."

Simor added that, in a Friday night conference call with Health Canada and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, Ga., a CDC expert surprised participants by revealing that the virus can remain alive and potent on inanimate objects much longer than previously thought.

"What the CDC mentioned to us last night was that, in their studies, they found that you could still culture viable virus from surfaces after as much as 24 hours, which is longer than we normally expect viruses to be able to survive in the environment," he said.

In a statement Saturday, the World Health Organization said it is also concerned about the possibility of environmental transmission. It's looking closely at how SARS spread through a Hong Kong apartment complex, where the building's sewage system, which carried the virus from an infected person.

However, the health body concluded there is "little risk" that environmental causes are behind a probable SARS case in a Toronto condominium. The incubation period has passed in the building with no further cases, the WHO noted.

The new cluster erupted at Toronto's Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, which has treated about half the region's SARS patients over the past month. It has 20 to 25 SARS patients admitted at any given time.

As of Saturday afternoon, four staff members, including at least one doctor, a nurse and a respiratory therapist, were in hospital and almost certainly have SARS. Another eight hospital staff members were sent into home quarantine as potential cases.

Hospital officials believe the infections occurred during difficult intubations involving two patients, including one last Sunday that took four hours. Intubation involves placing a tube down a patient's throat to facilitate breathing.

Both patients are now believed to be so-called super spreaders, or viral shedders, who are much more infectious than average SARS patients.

Some staff started feeling symptoms associated with SARS on Wednesday and Thursday. Senior hospital staff became aware of the threat late Thursday night.

Dr. Mary Vearncombe, the hospital's head of infection, prevention and control, said one worker's eye shield slipped during the Sunday intubation procedure but there was no other known breach of the staff's "full-droplet" protection. That protection includes gowns, gloves, eye shields and N-95 masks.

"We were using what both Health Canada and the Centers for Disease Control consider to be maximal precautions for these patients," she said, adding it's possible some potentially infected staff were not present at the intubations.

That raises serious questions about how the virus was spread and whether the current precautions are enough to protect health care workers.

Dr. Gerry Predy, the Edmonton health region's medical officer of health, said the CDC discovery shows how important hand washing and cleanliness are in preventing the spread of a virus such as SARS.

Viruses often spread when an infected person touches a door handle or some other object, after moistening a finger by touching their eye or nose, he explained. Then a healthy person first touches the door handle, then their own eye, and they have the infection.

But where SARS can survive on a door knob for 24 hours, a common cold virus can only survive for two to four hours, Predy said, so more SARS infections may be caused by lapses in hygiene than in droplets coughed into the air.

The new cluster will further tax Toronto's almost-paralysed health care system.

Instead of easing operating restrictions as it had planned, Sunnybrook has effectively closed its critical care, cardiovascular intensive care and SARS units for 10 days as a precaution.

"It's a huge burden on the system,'' said Leo Steven, the hospital's chief executive. He said Sunnybrook, probably the biggest trauma centre in Canada, will have to send trauma patients to hospitals in Toronto, Hamilton and beyond.

Vearncombe predicted that even if containment measures are successful, Canada will have to learn to live with the SARS threat.

"I have some level of optimism that we can contain it in Toronto," she told reporters.

"I have no optimism that we can contain it in developing areas of the world like mainland China so we will continue to import cases and we're going to have to remain absolutely vigilant."

Canada has about 300 probable and suspect cases of SARS in six provinces, mostly in Ontario.

The World Health Organization reported 86 new cases Saturday, bringing the global total to more than 3,500. To date, 182 people have died.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: incubationperiod; intubation; longevity; sars; superspreader
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1 posted on 04/20/2003 9:05:28 AM PDT by CathyRyan
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To: CathyRyan; Mother Abigail; per loin; Dog Gone; Petronski; riri; EternalHope; Domestic Church; ...
It's looking increasingly odd how there has been so little spread of the disease in this country.
2 posted on 04/20/2003 9:12:56 AM PDT by aristeides
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To: aristeides
Could this be part of a mutation?
3 posted on 04/20/2003 9:18:43 AM PDT by CathyRyan
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To: aristeides
No credible updates on the number of deaths worldwide out of the CDC or WHO, so why should we believe the number of US cases?

The CDC reporting is starting to look like China's...inaccurate, self-serving, artificially low figures. The CDC has less and less credibility...

As heavily into the politics of HIV as the CDC is, I wonder if they don't want to publicize the isolation tactics necessary to stop the spread of killer viruses for fear that some people will revive the quarantine AIDS argument.

That's more tinfoil hatting than I usually allow myself, but I'm getting cranky.

Time to go have brunch and play with the grandkiddies. See ya'll later.
4 posted on 04/20/2003 9:21:13 AM PDT by Judith Anne
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To: aristeides
But where SARS can survive on a door knob for 24 hours, a common cold virus can only survive for two to four hours

This does not bode well.

5 posted on 04/20/2003 9:25:50 AM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: Judith Anne
The numbers in the US are starting to look squirrely. I had chauked it up to thank g*d and good luck but I bet you are right.
6 posted on 04/20/2003 9:30:58 AM PDT by CathyRyan
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To: CathyRyan
Bush better take some action on travel restrictions etc or comes 2004 it won't be the economy but the " IT'S THE SARS STUPID"
7 posted on 04/20/2003 9:45:02 AM PDT by uncbob ( building tomorrow)
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To: CathyRyan
"I have no optimism that we can contain it in developing areas of the world like mainland China so we will continue to import cases and we're going to have to remain absolutely vigilant."
8 posted on 04/20/2003 9:52:15 AM PDT by ET(end tyranny) ( Deut.32:18-Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.)
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To: uncbob
comes 2004 it won't be the economy

If the train doesn't make a stop at the next station there won't be an economy in 2004!

9 posted on 04/20/2003 10:09:51 AM PDT by riri
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To: CathyRyan
The US was originally lumping suspect and probable cases together. Oddly when they changed, and drop their count into the thirties, WHO continued to list the higher figure. Does WHO know something?
10 posted on 04/20/2003 10:27:31 AM PDT by per loin
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To: CathyRyan; All
Sars: More than one cause? .
11 posted on 04/20/2003 10:39:36 AM PDT by aristeides
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To: aristeides
(Hope you don't mind if I post the article)

Sars: More than one cause?

20/04/2003 18:00 - (SA)

Montreal - The corona virus identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as giving rise to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), may not be the only cause of the disease, Canadian heath officials said on Sunday.

"We have only identified the corona virus in 50% of the people being treated for Sars," health ministry spokesperson Paul Gully told the Sunday edition of the Montreal newspaper La Presse.

"We have a slightly less optimistic vision than the WHO, and it is still too early to talk of a medicine or a vaccine which might slow the spread of Sars," said Gully, who is also a medical doctor.

Gully's comments were based on the analysis by a Winnipeg microbiology laboratory of samples taken from Canadian Sars sufferers, La Presse said.

Outside Asia, where Sars originated, Canada has been the country worst affected by the atypical and deadly strain of pneumonia.

On Wednesday, the WHO announced a corona virus previously known in animals but never observed in humans to be the cause of Sars.

Corona viruses also cause the common cold.

12 posted on 04/20/2003 10:46:31 AM PDT by blam
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To: aristeides
Could that be the difference in virulence?
13 posted on 04/20/2003 10:47:14 AM PDT by CathyRyan
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To: aristeides
They did the Koch's postulate on the corona virus. Who the heck nows anything about this disease at this point.
14 posted on 04/20/2003 10:54:26 AM PDT by CathyRyan
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To: blam
Of course I don't mind. Thanks for posting it.
15 posted on 04/20/2003 11:04:57 AM PDT by aristeides
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To: CathyRyan
I don't know how you establish that all people suffering from a new disease are infected with the same organism unless and until you first establish there is only one disease. How do you exclude the possiblity that there are two or more diseases?
16 posted on 04/20/2003 11:10:24 AM PDT by aristeides
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To: CathyRyan; All
Interesting explanations of the super-spreaders in this article: City Of Fear, Hope: Hong Kong keeps a brave face as SARS crisis grows.
17 posted on 04/20/2003 11:11:24 AM PDT by aristeides
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To: CathyRyan; Walkingfeather
Once it beecomes broad public knowledge that the SARS virus can last over 24 hours on inanimate surfaces, Chinese imports into the US are going to take a hit.

Sounds like a good time to sell WalMart stock

18 posted on 04/20/2003 11:18:48 AM PDT by SauronOfMordor (Heavily armed, easily bored, and off my medication)
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To: SauronOfMordor
I don't think they're suggesting that the virus could survive two months on a ship.
19 posted on 04/20/2003 11:21:29 AM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: CathyRyan
The numbers in the US are starting to look squirrely. I had chauked it up to thank g*d and good luck but I bet you are right.

Even when you only go by the new "probable" criteria, the deaths numbers are out of whack compared to Canada. Are we to believe that Canada's med system sucks so badly compared to us (perhaps so, but our numbers still look suspicious)

20 posted on 04/20/2003 11:24:44 AM PDT by SauronOfMordor (Heavily armed, easily bored, and off my medication)
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